COLUMBIA, S.C. — Details are still emerging regarding what led employees at Richland County's Department of Social Services to walk off the job Friday.
News19 received several calls from tipsters claiming to be employees of DSS, who said they had walked off the job and were gathering in the department’s parking lot.
Sources say the walkout stems from poor working conditions, made worse after two juveniles who were in the care of DSS, engaged in an argument, then vandalized several offices in the building.
When workers arrived for work Friday morning, they were met with broken glass and other messes.
That’s when workers decided they’d had enough and walked out.
The situation became so tense Friday afternoon, that state DSS Director Michael Leach visited the location on Two Notch Road to try and make peace with the employees who had walked off the job.
Leach had been speaking to employees on the front steps of the building, but after our cameras showed up, the meeting was moved inside.
Very few of the employees would agree to speak to members of the media. One source said, “Some of us are afraid of being personally attacked by the kids. We work in deplorable conditions and have been promised a new building for 10 years.”
One employee said she loved her job and accepted that working with troubled youth was part of the responsibilities, but that it wasn’t worth risking serious injury or death.
The Department of Social Services issued a statement that said in part:
“DSS leadership visited Richland County within the last three weeks and a plan is in place to improve the working conditions of DSS professionals including adding additional security, additional clinical staff reassigned to Richland County, as well as physical improvements to the building while the agency waits for Richland County government to complete the new family services center slated for the Columbia Mall."
The new DSS offices will eventually fill the area left vacant when Dillard’s left the mall. The Department of Juvenile Justice and the county’s 911 call center will also eventually call the Columbia Place Mall property home.